"Incredibly successful release of Lion"? There's a 150-page "discussion" on the Apple Forum, one of several such threads, that indicate the release was anything but successful. Sure, if you blatanltly misrepresent a weak product, people are going to buy it based on their expectations from the past. For Apple to try and ignore what's gone down with Lion is outrageous.

Enlighten us, what 'went down' with Lion?

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And oh, how we so love those great iPad and iOS operating systems.

You are trolling, really.

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Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere

Goodbye! Don't let the code byte you where the wall should indite you!

Goodbye! Don't let the code byte you where the wall should indite you!

Start reading here for firsthand accounts of the Lion fiasco. Then read the other dozen or so threads complaining of overheating (my Air's CPU took off and fried the logic board and the SSDs), low battery life, need for upgrades to run perfectly fine prior applications, and the general idiocy of the iOS interface. I don't shill for Apple, I want it to get better. Becoming a de facto monopolist that imprisons its users and developers for its own enrichment is so Robber Baron.

Why haven't I seen any of those threads here or anyone really complaining about Lion in that way? We got a lot of Rosetta complains here, sure, but that's Rosetta. If your app is six years old, you deserve to be obsoleted.

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Originally Posted by cyberoid

…general idiocy of the iOS interface… …de facto monopolist that imprisons its users and developers…

I don't blame Apple for going after the consumer business but I dislike "upgrades" that actually de-feature the OS. I bought many of these powerful pro machines to do certain tasks in an efficient manner. I don't want them turned into consumer equipment.

A wise shift here might be to use the different types of users built into OS X. Managed, Standard and Admin accounts in OS X could conceivably be leveraged to maintain what thin differentiation that still remains between the cell phone world of Apple and what used to be the second word in the company's name.

I liked to call lion os x 10.7 vista, and I was exaggerating, sadly from what we know today mountain lion is os x 10.8 vista.

Sure is a good thing you're wrong. As evidenced by accounts of people who've actually used the Developer Preview of 10.8 and who actually have information from which they can formulate ANY sort of truthful opinion with weight behind it.

As opposed to what you've said. In what way, pray tell, is this supposed to be "Vistaesque"?

I don't think it's unreasonable to bring up the issues with Lion. It's arguably been the most problematic release since 10.0. To call it a fiasco, however is over the top, in my opinion.

it's fair to say Apple is much less concerned with backwards compatibility than Microsoft. Snow Leopard and especially Lion broke a lot of old software and left a lot of old hardware behind. that has caused lots of those issues. whereas MS Windows is definitely slowed down by its massive legacy demands, and is more complicated as a result too.

maybe it really is because Apple wants to incentivize hardware sales. but i also think it's just part of the Apple DNA - pushing the new even at the price of leaving behind the comfortable. the iOS-ification of OS X is plainly where Apple is going no matter what. take it or leave it (just reinstall Leopard).

And this is EXACTLY what's happening. People are whining about the iOS-ness and multitouch additions in the same fashion as when they complained about the move to a GUI between the Apple ][ and the Macintosh.

We just have to deal with it more visibly because the Internet exists this time around.

When you think about just how long it has been since computers were last revolutionized (particularly in respect to how much less time it took for the last transition from Altair to Apple ][), you have to wonder how much harder it will be to get people to make this change. It's like the San Andreas and New Madrid fault*lines or Yellowstone/other volcanoes. Eventually it will build up and all this whining explodes at once.

I wonder about the reason behind the amount of time this took. My thoughts drift back to the old, ever-present enemy as the reason we've had the same interface for the past 28 years, and I don't think I'm too far off.

Take a step back and realize you're complaining about an update you don't have to install, pay attention to, or even care about at all.

I care about it a lot because I fell in love with the way os x did things when I switched way back when, and I find it incredibly frustrating the misguided direction they are taking it to. I am very frustrated that I have not seen a very good os grow to become even better but pandering to an aesthetic of a mobile os, hardly adding any useful features, and actually taking major steps back in usability. I care very much where the os and the platform I spent so much money on and time to get to know is going. I care very much that the've abandoned any plans for resolution independence and I get eye strain as I age, I care very much that they opted for a monochromatic interface and that makes my eye strain even worse.

I care cause I expected them to take a hint from the reception of lion from apple's user base, which was anything but a resounding success. And I expected that in it's next iteration os x would reverse some of the damage as well as bring about some real progress and fix some long standing issues.

And I am having my coffee today and I read about mountain lion, and I am thinking good god, it's not that I 'll have to wait a bit longer to get rid of lion with a better .8 release, there seems to be no hope for .9 either. It seems like it's adios amigos time to the os I 've loved using.

Not even Steve Balmer would advertise chinese as a major new os feature.

Maybe they will take a hint now from the reaction of people on the internet. Maybe they won't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slurpy

Ok so now we're supposed to be outraged that Apple is still putting major attention on OSX and we'll have new features sooner than we ever expected. Last week it was outrage that Apple has 'abandoned' OSX.

Let me know guys, its tough to keep up.

What features are we getting? A notes and reminders app from the ipad? Twitter? Chinese? Ichat renamed as messages?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Sure is a good thing you're wrong. As evidenced by accounts of people who've actually used the Developer Preview of 10.8 and who actually have information from which they can formulate ANY sort of truthful opinion with weight behind it.

As opposed to what you've said. In what way, pray tell, is this supposed to be "Vistaesque"?

Vista was bloatware with too much of the wrong type of eye candy badly done, sound familiar?

I have time again stated my case with what is wrong with how snow leopard developed to lion:

Lack of vision: simply adding ios aesthetic elements to pander to the ios crowd and get more people to switch. Ios elements that translate poorly on a desktop interface (because they are suited for a tablet) and actually make life worse on os x, case in point the calendar and address book apps.

A monochromatic paradigm from ios, which makes life so much harder on os x, what with colour cues missing.

No resolution independence, long abandoned as apparently undoable for apple and substituted with some vagueness of hdpi screen support, whenever this might come.

No zfs type robust file system for data integrity. No tangible improvements in the finder in terms of tagging and organization of files, minimum improvements in quick look and that's all.

No major rewrite or paradigm swift for itunes which by now is as bloatware as it gets.

Ruining of existing well functioning aspects of the os such as expose.

Icloud while welcome is also, a. a step back since keychains are not synced anymore, nor docks as in mm, b. instead of fixing idisk just because they couldn't buy off dropbox they ditched it.

I care about it a lot because I fell in love with the way os x did things when I switched way back when, and I find it incredibly frustrating the misguided direction they are taking it to. I am very frustrated that I have not seen a very good os grow to become even better but pandering to an aesthetic of a mobile os, hardly adding any useful features, and actually taking major steps back in usability. I care very much where the os and the platform I spent so much money on and time to get to know is going. I care very much that the've abandoned any plans for resolution independence and I get eye strain as I age, I care very much that they opted for a monochromatic interface and that makes my eye strain even worse.

I care cause I expected them to take a hint from the reception of lion from apple's user base, which was anything but a resounding success. And I expected that in it's next iteration os x would reverse some of the damage as well as bring about some real progress and fix some long standing issues.

And I am having my coffee today and I read about mountain lion, and I am thinking good god, it's not that I 'll have to wait a bit longer to get rid of lion with a better .8 release, there seems to be no hope for .9 either. It seems like it's adios amigos time to the os I 've loved using.

Not even Steve Balmer would advertise chinese as a major new os feature.

Maybe they will take a hint now from the reaction of people on the internet. Maybe they won't.

What features are we getting? A notes and reminders app from the ipad? Twitter? Chinese? Ichat renamed as messages?

Vista was bloatware with too much of the wrong type of eye candy badly done, sound familiar?

I have time again stated my case with what is wrong with how snow leopard developed to lion:

Lack of vision: simply adding ios aesthetic elements to pander to the ios crowd and get more people to switch. Ios elements that translate poorly on a desktop interface (because they are suited for a tablet) and actually make life worse on os x, case in point the calendar and address book apps.

A monochromatic paradigm from ios, which makes life so much harder on os x, what with colour cues missing.

No resolution independence, long abandoned as apparently undoable for apple and substituted with some vagueness of hdpi screen support, whenever this might come.

No zfs type robust file system for data integrity. No tangible improvements in the finder in terms of tagging and organization of files, minimum improvements in quick look and that's all.

No major rewrite or paradigm swift for itunes which by now is as bloatware as it gets.

Ruining of existing well functioning aspects of the os such as expose.

Icloud while welcome is also, a. a step back since keychains are not synced anymore, nor docks as in mm, b. instead of fixing idisk just because they couldn't buy off dropbox they ditched it.

there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the past. can happen to anyone. so now Apple is jilting you, but you'll always have Linux! Sayonara!

it's fair to say Apple is much less concerned with backwards compatibility than Microsoft.

And for the better, I believe. I'd much rather Apple focus upon optimisation for recent hardware than legacy support. In 2 years time when my mid-09 mbp is "stuck" with SL and ML partitions, it will still work fine. I'm sure I'll be wanting to upgrade to newer hardware by then, the Core2Duo is already feeling it's age with HD files...

"Misguided"? Are you Steve Jobs? Or, rather, are you Bertrand Serlet? And since your absence, Apple has decided not to listen to your advice in how you think the future of the Mac operating system should play out?

Because if not, I'm pretty darn sure they have it under control.

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pandering to an aesthetic of a mobile os

I wonder if something like this was said about Mac OS 1. Just replace 'mobile' with 'artsy-fartsy' or something along those lines.

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major steps back in usability

You can ignore all multitouch gestures and use it just as you always have. You can ignore virtually all new features and use it just as you always have. The same goes for any version of OS X.

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I care very much that the've abandoned any plans for resolution independence

Oh, you know this? You've read an internal memo or something that intimated as such? Because I see brand new hand and arrow cursors designed for this very thing. I see Desktop pictures with a resolution of 3200x2000, designed for that very thing. I see an option built into OS X right now to turn on HiDPI modes for this very purpose.

It will come. It HAS come; it's just not done yet.

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some of the damage

WHAT damage? All I see is a bunch of people complaining about how it looks like iOS. NO one is going to listen to them. Apple didn't say, "Well, people are complaining that the Apple ][ isn't just a box with a bunch of flashing lights, so let's remove the keyboard and screen on the Apple ]|[."

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Not even Steve Balmer would advertise chinese as a major new os feature.

And this bothers you, does it?

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Maybe they will take a hint now from the reaction of people on the internet. Maybe they won't.

Our reaction is favorable. They are taking our hints.

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What features are we getting? A notes and reminders app from the ipad? Twitter? Chinese? Ichat renamed as messages?

Yes, because there's absolutely no way that Apple has done anything else to the operating system. This is ALL you get. Period. No exceptions. They're just waiting another six months to release it for, well, really no reason. In fact, they just want to steal your money because since this is all they've done and will ever do to the OS, they could easily just release the applications themselves as standalone.

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Vista was bloatware with too much of the wrong type of eye candy badly done, sound familiar?

Yes, Android.

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Lack of vision:

Which is what YOU suffer from. I'll get to this in a minute.

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simply adding ios aesthetic elements to pander to the ios crowd and get more people to switch. Ios elements that translate poorly on a desktop interface (because they are suited for a tablet)

Lion and Mountain Lion are transitional softwares. In this day and age, what with everyone and their mother (and their GRANDPARENTS) owning computers, you can't just plop down a new interface paradigm and say, "This is what you use from now on. It's truly infinitely better than what you've been using, so please just trust us and use it."

You can do it with phones because it had never been done before. You can do it with tablets because they'd been done wrong.

You can't do it with a desktop OS. Apple HAS a vision. Apple has had a vision since 2003 when Steve Jobs was first shown an Apple-designed-and-built tablet running OS X. By the end of the decade, by my thinking, we'll have a brand new interface paradigm. A multitouch desktop OS, built from the ground up, designed to be both multitouch AND of desktop use quality.

That's where these UI elements are coming in. We're being acclimated to them. You can have millions of people scale Pike's Peak, but you can't get them all on top of Everest as easily.

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and actually make life worse on os x, case in point the calendar and address book apps.

This is subjective as all get out.

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A monochromatic paradigm from ios, which makes life so much harder on os x, what with colour cues missing.

I'd rather my OS not shove itself in my face. Being as unobtrusive as possible is key.

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No resolution independence, long abandoned as apparently undoable for apple and substituted with some vagueness of hdpi screen support, whenever this might come.

It's truly coming. I'd still believe you had the last few months' announcements and findings not happened.

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No major rewrite or paradigm swift for itunes which by now is as bloatware as it gets.

Props; you're right about that.

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Icloud while welcome is also, a. a step back since keychains are not synced anymore, nor docks as in mm, b. instead of fixing idisk just because they couldn't buy off dropbox they ditched it.

@Tallest Skill, Some points well taken, no time to get back to you in more detail though, at some points we 'll agree to disagree. Had apple given me resolution independence and a way to turn off what I find are the more obnoxious ios elements (monochromatic sidebars being a case in point), as well as not defaulting on such things as versioning, I wouldn't be so up in arms about os x development.

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Originally Posted by Alfiejr

there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the past. can happen to anyone. so now Apple is jilting you, but you'll always have Linux! Sayonara!

Enjoy your cocktails with Gruber and Phil(-lip) Shill-er at the hotel bar and watch out with the glasses because they can get slippery with concurrent lubricant use.

Goodbye! Don't let the code byte you where the wall should indite you!

Mission Control ruined Expose.

Also, OS X has gradually gotten more like iOS in that IT decides what you do. Not you. That's why I used a Mac instead of Windows, so I can do what I want how I want. Today I noticed because I moved QT PLayer into a folder with other media players, when I did a 10.6.8 security update it f'd up QT Player. I will have to apply a combo update or something. I can't even decide where my applications are stored. Fff. OS X is definitely going down hill in my opinion. I think the best release was either 10.5 or 10.6. This whole "turn the Mac into an iPhone" crap is annoying. Maybe that's because I hate the iPhone and iOS though... I like Android. Although I wouldn't want OS X to turn into that, either. I just want a good desktop OS. Forcing stupid iOS paradigms and concepts into OS X looks ugly, makes it less powerful and more kludgy. My 2 cents.

"Overpopulation and climate change are serious shit." Gilsch"I was really curious how they had managed such fine granularity of alienation." addabox

never really get the grousing about iTunes. it's always done what i need, nicely. pick my settings. ignore that parts i don't use. Match is great. so?

but the thing is, iOS DID break it apart into several smaller apps: Music, Video, and iTunes. wouldn't surprise me to see that break up also coming to OS X too with the next big iTunes update. so that's good, right? but if you're against the iOS-ification of OS X, that's bad, right?

but the thing is, iOS DID break it apart into several smaller apps: Music, Video, and iTunes. wouldn't surprise me to see that break up also coming to OS X too with the next big iTunes update. so that's good, right? but if you're against the iOS-ification of OS X, that's bad, right?

I'm against breaking it up, I just want it to not suck. It's embarrassing that I have to scroll down past every single one of my thumbnails for them to load. It's amazing just how bad it is in Windows; that reflects poorly on Apple software as a whole. And I'd love iTunes to get a nice redesign and actual recoding like we were led to believe in iTunes 10.

@Tallest Skill, Some points well taken, no time to get back to you in more detail though, at some points we 'll agree to disagree. Had apple given me resolution independence and a way to turn off what I find are the more obnoxious ios elements (monochromatic sidebars being a case in point), as well as not defaulting on such things as versioning, I wouldn't be so up in arms about os x development.

Enjoy your cocktails with Gruber and Phil(-lip) Shill-er at the hotel bar and watch out with the glasses because they can get slippery with concurrent lubricant use.

I thought your comments regarding Lion as a sparkling example of bad interface design and the tendency to surrender our computing habits to mobility habits -- as if all most of us did was email and videos, on the road -- to be right on.

Ultimately, Mountain Lion and its ilk may one day be remembered as the beginning of the end for Apple as a serious computing company, i.e., a company that enabled its customers to do computing, to be creative, not merely one that served only entertainment and e-commerce. (There will always be a market for gizmos.) Coincidental but symbolic that this hellbent for leather strategy is implemented so soon after Steve Jobs passing. His desire for elegance should not be conflated with Apple's new mantras, ultra-simplicity and do-it-our-way-or-else. As a case in point, the proposed cross-platform Mountain Lion setup is remarkably kludgy, even Rube Goldbergian. It will "work" for awhile in part because of an abundance of cheap bandwidth -- though soon that bandwidth will become extremely expensive. And it will "work" because millions of mobile users will remain content to know nothing about how their technology works, willfully surrendering their creative independence for cheap fun and a trifle of functionality. Until there is a backlash.

Clay Christensen's seminal The Innovator's Dilemma (Harvard 1997) suggests that it's Apple that will most rue making the decision to so tightly integrate all of its products and then cast their fate on iOS. When someone comes up with something better or even just equal, but lower priced, Apple is going to have a hell of a time turning on a dime to compete. I'm a lifelong Apple user -- I bought one of the first Apple IIs for the California Legislature to try out, back in 1981 -- and I have to say, the best time I had being a real "computist" using Apple gear was in the supposedly dull late 90s, when Emilio licensed the OS to other companies. My Motorola Starmax was for its time the top computer in the world, utterly customizable, utterly adaptable, and powerful to boot. As much as I admire Apple in many ways, I don't worship it and if someone comes up with something better for computing purposes -- that honors my intelligence and creativity -- it's going to be very tempting to go for it. Already, Android has my interest as it sneaks into the enterprise and the home.

Someone earlier on remarked that he/she knew no Mac users who didn't also have iPhones. Funny, I don't know many Mac users -- and I know plenty -- who are avid iPhone users. The most sophisticated telecom people I know, world-class geniuses who live in the Metaverse, prefer highly competent flip phones. I hypothesize that the more you know about a field of practice, the more you want Grade A tools that fit specific purposes at hand, not products that are capable of doing (a very few) things in common, over and over, with overall B+ performance.

Mountain Lion brings up some interesting scenarios. What happens when Lenovo teams up with Samsung and comes up with an OS 15 equivalent targeted to computer users? They already can produce comparable hardware. Will Apple shift to 100% digital devices? Or, as cloud solutions proliferate and all things become interoperable, will it become merely a distributor of content? Its ferocious defense of patents suggests that its smart management recognizes the Dilemma but is doing all it can to avoid coming to grips with it by slaughtering the competition in court. That will go just so far.

In the late 60s, all roads led to White Plains and Armonk: IBM was synonymous with computing. There was no other. It did everything that needed doing.

Today, doing away with user-manipulable architecture, even files, and depending entirely on punching up little pictorial apps seems as doctrinaire as batch coding and C++ did then. But that's the nature of doctrines, they become dogmas; so let's bet the company on it. Forget the past, we're all about The Future.

Clay Christensen's seminal The Innovator's Dilemma (Harvard 1997) suggests that it's Apple that will most rue making the decision to so tightly integrate all of its products and then cast their fate on iOS.

I don't share your pessimism. From Gruber today, note the bold:

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Just like with Lion, Mountain Lion is evolving in the direction of the iPad. But, just as with Lion last year, its about sharing ideas and concepts with iOS, not sharing the exact same interaction design or code. The words Windows and Microsoft are never mentioned, but the insinuation is clear: Apple sees a fundamental difference between software for the keyboard-and-mouse-pointer Mac and that for the touchscreen iPad. Mountain Lion is not a step towards a single OS that powers both the Mac and iPad, but rather another in a series of steps toward defining a set of shared concepts, styles, and principles between two fundamentally distinct OSes.

Apple has been more than happy to disrupt it's own products over the past 10 years - the laptop becoming dominant over the desktop, the iPhone replacing the iPod, the iPad now looking at displacing the laptop. I doubt that Apple will sit still with the iPad. There are people at Apple who have read Clay Christensen, you know

Equally, one day Apple itself will be disrupted, this is unavoidable. However, I don't see anything in ML that doesn't allow someone to use an Apple computer to do "serious computing". And perhaps the notion of "serious computing" itself will be different in 5 years to what it is now?

These posts crack me up. having a rudimentary version of something and having something that is well integrated and usable are two different things.

You'd be surprised... Linux's issues have nothing to do with the OS itself, but marketing and various other failings. But the filesystem is incredibly good, the UI can be nice, and its a very good, safe, stable system. Notifications and whatnot are very well integrated into some Linux OSes.

Regardless, Linux will never touch anywhere near OSX's market share, but its servers run just about everything.

Apple has been more than happy to disrupt it's own products over the past 10 years - the laptop becoming dominant over the desktop, the iPhone replacing the iPod, the iPad now looking at displacing the laptop. I doubt that Apple will sit still with the iPad. There are people at Apple who have read Clay Christensen, you know

Equally, one day Apple itself will be disrupted, this is unavoidable. However, I don't see anything in ML that doesn't allow someone to use an Apple computer to do "serious computing". And perhaps the notion of "serious computing" itself will be different in 5 years to what it is now?

This is a topic worthy for separate consideration on AI or somewhere: what is "serious computing" now and what will it be in five years? At root is the definition of computing, whether writing code is computing, whether popping an app icon is computing, whether watching a TV show via Apple TV is computing, or whether computing is -- and this is the definition I prefer -- being able to use a computer to characterize, deconstruct, and solve a problem that hasn't been solved before.

Thanks, sennen, for putting it on the table.

As for the issue of disruption, I agree that Apple has been self-disruptive in the past -- but the appearance of a string of Mac OSs based on iOS, now called only "OSX," and the integration of Apple everything with everything else suggests that those days are over.

Self-disruption was characteristic of past high-profile Apple visionaries and inventors, and investors who enjoyed the adventure. Who can name one now?

This long diatribe can essentially be summarized as "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

/shrug

As an older person with bad eyesight old cranky people annoy me when they start saying stupid stuff like this. The older we get the more like kids we become. I didn't get the kind of candy I wanted! Waaaah! Tantrum! Tantrum!

Mkay. There are more useful features to aid eyesight issues in OSX than I've found in Win7.

And if it comes down to it, use a small (32"-42") 1080p HDTV for a monitor. The UI is freaking huge and the resolution provides sufficient screen real estate. Resolution independence doesn't buy you crap given the end result is a smaller desktop on a bigger screen. Gee, that's what a bigger monitor with lower resolution does. Any other image quality gains you get from a hdpi screen isn't missed because, why? You have shitty eyesight which is why you wanted res independence in the first place.

+1 for iBooks on OS X, seems an odd omission not to have it. If you have a macbook air you might quite like to read a book on a commute etc as opposed to carrying an iPad with you too. If you don't need it don't run it.

Is there any mention of resolution independence? IF new high-res macbooks on way we're going to run into font size issues. (I can't believe they are not coming because there will be the inability to preview iBooks/ iPad retina apps at 1:1.)

I find that 720p itunes 4Mbps is not good enough for a tv set. (great for ipad ) i find that the HD itunes movies look "noisy" .

in any case the movies use "macroblocks" to encode the picture, the greater the resolution, the more macroblocks you need for the same quality at resolution. (SD itunes looks good, so does HD itunes compared to each other, because SD itunes approx 1.5 Mbps whereas HD itunes is approx 4.5 Mbps.)

@cyberoid It has been very enlightening to read your lucid and intelligent posts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nht

This long diatribe can essentially be summarized as "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

/shrug

As an older person with bad eyesight old cranky people annoy me when they start saying stupid stuff like this. The older we get the more like kids we become. I didn't get the kind of candy I wanted! Waaaah! Tantrum! Tantrum!

Mkay. There are more useful features to aid eyesight issues in OSX than I've found in Win7.

And if it comes down to it, use a small (32"-42") 1080p HDTV for a monitor. The UI is freaking huge and the resolution provides sufficient screen real estate. Resolution independence doesn't buy you crap given the end result is a smaller desktop on a bigger screen. Gee, that's what a bigger monitor with lower resolution does. Any other image quality gains you get from a hdpi screen isn't missed because, why? You have shitty eyesight which is why you wanted res independence in the first place.

Apparently you are unaware of some of the basics of resolution independence and computer monitor technology. But you seem very capable at ad hominems and offending others as well as blind apologism.

Lcds are meant to be run at their native resolution, otherwise they become fuzzy, that's why lowering the native resolution on an lcd screen doesn't work for people who have astigmatism, or are sensitive to glare, eye strain or for that matter any type of typeset on a computer monitor that is not well defined.

Zooming in and out of font as is implemented in os x for accessibility also causes the text to appear fuzzy and this is not a matter of opinion it's a matter of fact.

Even people with perfect eyesight benefit a lot from well defined characters on a screen, that's why extremely large dot pitches such as the ones on the current iphones are making people everywhere attest to how good they find the iphone screen for reading due to its high dot pitch.

In order to be able to run higher dpi monitors like the ones that appear in apple's portables and benefit from their increased pitch there has to be a way that os fonts do not constantly decrease in size as the resolution increases. (and all this of course has nothing to do with screen real estate). But that the user can set to enlarge their size across the os according to their preferences so by becoming larger they become more legible. There is no benefit from a screen with increased dpi when the fonts become smaller and smaller with every further increase in resolution and there is no way to make them uniformly larger. They benefit from getting better defined letters due to the higher dpi but if the letters become smaller and smaller that benefit is negated.

Another issue that affects legibility of fonts, on the hardware side is the choice of the type of lcd technlogy used (pva, tn, ips, pls panels) and above all the coating used on the monitor. With modern ips screens almost all manufacturers are opting for extremely grainy and aggressive coatings that reduce reflectivity but give the text a very sparkly effect. Much less so in tn or pva panels. There's also the issue of reflections as I hinted at. No technology on a large scale exists today that can manage both a clear coating and an effective reduction in glare. Some are being researched. Apple has opted to mar their whole line up of macs with glass panels, with hardly any antireflective treatment. These glass layers are super imposed on top of the lcd screen, thus making two surfaces available for refraction of light, which are not even fused together as in the current iphones (how does it always end up to the fact that iphone is the only thing anyone really cares about in apple to actually aggressively move technology forward...). Glass is also highly reflective and that is a further reason why imacs cause eye strain. Of course, it goes without saying, that a clear coating makes fonts appear more clear the trade off is such high reflections.

On both the software side what with no resolution independence and the screen tech on on modern macs, apple has not opted to invest any of their enormous money in the bank to actively research and promote technologies that would enable better legibility. They seem to not care about what is becoming an increasing problem in computer use. That of computers degrading users eye-sight and causing enormous eye strain (as well as headaches) to the user.

I wonder how we got from Steve Jobs quitting college and attending a couple of calligraphy classes thus inspiring him to enable the macs to have more elegant typesets to the current state of affairs where one has to beg for apple to innovate in their screen coatings and for them to implement more legible fonts on the mac.

But whoopy, I have reminders app and twitter integration, and I can finally learn chinese because the os supports it.

...
Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere -- or for Apple to cut loose the Mac division and let it sink or swim without the baggage of the digital toys. Keep the compatibility but lose the lame interface designs and performance. I bet it -- and we -- would do just fine.

Yup. My current Mac will be my last Mac. At first it was because they switched the iMacs to glossy displays, but now it's their continued 'dummification' of OS X. I've long since accepted their completely inconsistent interface, but that's also another nail in the coffin.

Yup. My current Mac will be my last Mac. At first it was because they switched the iMacs to glossy displays, but now it's their continued 'dummification' of OS X. I've long since accepted their completely inconsistent interface, but that's also another nail in the coffin.

Looks like my next OS will be some version of Linux.

Sucks as I've been using Mac's since the mid-80's.

Bye. You're being a complete fool, but bye. It's obvious you won't wake up to reality, so enjoy learning a new OS for no reason.

So with all the rumors about a TV or the next iPad or whatever, I did not see one report on any site, including AI, that said "rumor has it that Apple will release a new OSX in the summer of 12". Rumor mongers missed this one. Apple makes them all look a bit more foolish again. To be fair Apple got smart and got all the journalists to sign NDA's, then gave them first look. Smart way to shut down the rumor mill. My guess is when the rumors for a TV stop, that will be the indication it's real, or maybe not.

I think it was the last event Jobs spoke that he said the Mac was "just another device." I could see Apple changing the accounting for Macs that would make yearly updates free of charge. This could end up being more profitable for Apple as it could...

Increase Mac ownership since free yearly OS updates would be considered value added.

Lower the cost of the support since more users would be getting the latest OS updates since no cost is being applied.

Eventually shorten the timeframe in which older Macs are supported to something more akin to the 3 years for iOS-based devices instead of going back 5 to 6 years for most machines.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

based on this thread, maybe the best thing about Mountain Lion is all the endless whiners who will finally abandoned Mac OS and switch to Linux to continue forever with their "true computing." hopefully also migrating to Linux fan sites.

Ok, Twitter is dumb, but I don't mind all the social networking stuff if it's hidden behind a Share Sheet button I can safely ignore.

You can still do all the hard core stuff you can do with Lion: open a terminal window, write your own app in C and run it (without signing if you don't want)... There's no dumbing down.

It's just the newest way to troll. Fact is some of us have been using Apple since the Apple II days and the company has never sought to make their computers more complex to use. Steve used to parrot the phrase "the computer for the rest of us" .

Yet some people get nostalgic and suddenly the "good ole" years were when the UI wasn't tailored to allow mom and grandma to understand easily thereby forcing them to appeal to their technical wizardry.

Mountain Lion to me makes sense in almost every way.

iCloud -

Now that Apple has an extensible sync technology kludges like syncing To-Do through CalDav and Notes through IMAP are gone. Those features are now pulled out of Calendar and Mail and made rightfully into their own apps.

I think there was a realization from Apple that you cannot effectively build a sync foundation at the same time as the OS and expect everything to be solid. ML should rectify this to some extent and clearly cleans up the hazy "Documents in the Cloud" that we have with Lion.

I'm finding that I don't need some grand new feature added. I need a further evolutionary improvement to the features we have now. Excited for what's coming her and to me it's anything but dumbed down.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Apparently you are unaware of some of the basics of resolution independence and computer monitor technology. But you seem very capable at ad hominems and offending others as well as blind apologism.

Nope. Very aware of monitor technology and rez independence. Rez independence can be both a great boon and a great headache for the developer.

U mad bro?

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Lcds are meant to be run at their native resolution, otherwise they become fuzzy, that's why lowering the native resolution on an lcd screen doesn't work for people who have astigmatism, or are sensitive to glare, eye strain or for that matter any type of typeset on a computer monitor that is not well defined.

Never said a word about running at lower than native resolution. I said get a bigger monitor at the same resolution.

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Zooming in and out of font as is implemented in os x for accessibility also causes the text to appear fuzzy and this is not a matter of opinion it's a matter of fact.

Yes, using the accessibility magnifying glass does make the text fuzzier. I hope you aren't doing that in Safari or MS Office. They have working zoom for text.

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Even people with perfect eyesight benefit a lot from well defined characters on a screen, that's why extremely large dot pitches such as the ones on the current iphones are making people everywhere attest to how good they find the iphone screen for reading due to its high dot pitch.

You have crappy eyesight or so you claim. Increased dot pitches have very little value to you given you can't see the pixel structure anyway much less sub-pixel structure. Okay, if you're highly astigmatic WITH otherwise good vision maybe but probably the corrective measures is probably causing other visual artifacts reducing acuity anyway.

The odds you are both highly astigmatic AND have good vision otherwise is reasonably low. Especially if you are complaining about resolution independence.

And dot pitch is better the smaller the number gets given it's the space between subpixels. You can measure as dots per inch but typically when you say "dot pitch" the measure is in mm.

Typically PPI is the increasing measure when resolution is increased for a given screen size.

For example:

The iPhone 3G has a dot pitch of 0.1541mm and a 164.83 PPI
The iPhone 4S has a dot pitch of 0.0771mm and a 329.65 PPI

But given you're such a screen expert you knew all that and that a large dot pitch is crappier not better.

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In order to be able to run higher dpi monitors like the ones that appear in apple's portables and benefit from their increased pitch there has to be a way that os fonts do not constantly decrease in size as the resolution increases. (and all this of course has nothing to do with screen real estate).

We're talking about OSX and not iOS. The ability for Mountain Lion to do or not do resolution independence has nothing to do with portables except laptops. In which case you should stop spending money on the higher resolution 15" display and get the default medium rez panel.

Resolution has everything to do with desktop screen real estate. The higher the resolution the more pixels to park things. Hence more real estate for icons, lines of text, image, whatever. 1024x768 is tight. 1920x1080 good. 2560x1440 very roomy.

This is why 1024x700 netbooks sucked for web browsing. With all the window decorations and stuff the actual web page had very little vertical space.

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But that the user can set to enlarge their size across the os according to their preferences so by becoming larger they become more legible.

Which reduces screen real estate because OMG everything is bigger and you have less room to actually put stuff.

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There is no benefit from a screen with increased dpi when the fonts become smaller and smaller with every further increase in resolution and there is no way to make them uniformly larger. They benefit from getting better defined letters due to the higher dpi but if the letters become smaller and smaller that benefit is negated.

If your vision didn't suck you might realize that increased resolution means more screen real estate for stuff you CAN see. With better vision you can in fact read smaller fonts and have more lines of text on the screen at one time. Whether that's a word document, lines of code or whatever.

Another issue that affects legibility of fonts, on the hardware side is the choice of the type of lcd technlogy used (pva, tn, ips, pls panels) and above all the coating used on the monitor...

blah blah blah

Which has butkus to do with resolution independence aside from you wanting larger text/icons in the same space.

Which is achieved on the desktop by what? Oh a bigger monitor at the same resolution which is what I suggested. On a laptop, it means the same size display with lower resolution (13" MBP vs 13" MBA or lower vs higher rez 15" MBP).

I guarandamntee you that if you switched to a 32+" 1920x1080 HDTV (60 Hz) with IPS or PVA matte panel vs whatever hdpi monitor you're using you could see everything a lot better as long as the TV has a decent PC or Game mode (no extra video processing and perfect 1:1 pixel match).

Given you're blind like I am you wont see the pixel structure at normal monitor distances anyway.

It is more expense? Sure. The iMac comes with a screen...a pretty nice one at that. Getting a second monitor is more money. Then again, the 21" iMac is $500 less than the 27". That's plenty to opt for a 21" iMac and a 32" HDTV which will probably run you less than $500.

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They seem to not care about what is becoming an increasing problem in computer use. That of computers degrading users eye-sight and causing enormous eye strain (as well as headaches) to the user.

Because evidently their primary demographic isn't old blind people like you and me. Waaaaaaaah.

Buy a better for you desktop monitor. Go for the mini vs the iMac if having a second higher rez screen is useless for you. Even shifting to a 1920x1080 27" monitor would be good vs either iMac panels.

If there are no Finder windows showing, when I select the Finder app, I'd like two Finder windows automatically opened spanning the screen the same size one beneath the other. That's what I'd like to see - better ways to manipulate files. I use Google's 'Quick Search Box' rather than Spotlight as it is faster by miles.

While the changes are no doubt clever, it seems Apple hasn't got a grip on Computer-User priorities, and instead have focused on game-player priorities.